The recently appointed head of BBC Scotland, Hayley Valentine, has ruled out introducing a Netflix-style subscription option for iPlayer instead of only giving access to licence fee payers, telling MPs it would “exclude” people.
Valentine, who took over as the director of the channel in October, told Westminster’s Scottish Affairs Committee today that moving to a subscription model like US streaming giants would undermine the BBC’s commitment to “universality”.
Labour MP Lillian Jones had suggested that the BBC, instead of only allowing those with a TV licence to watch iPlayer, might consider a subscription model.
However, Valentine responded: “We need our service to feel universal and if we have subscription services then it excludes people who can’t potentially afford, the disenfranchised, the less well-off.
“Anything along that subscription model doesn’t fit in with our universal value of the universality piece,” she added.
